Looking past the near-term concerns that have plagued population policy at the political level, it is increasingly apparent that the long-term sustainability of civilization will require not just a leveling-off of human numbers as projected over the coming half-century, but a colossal reduction in both population and consumption.

It has become increasingly apparent over the past half-century that there is a growing tension between two seemingly irreconcilable trends. On one hand, moderate to conservative demographic projections indicate that global human numbers will almost certainly reach 9 billion, perhaps more, by mid-21st century. On the other, prudent and increasingly reliable scientific estimates suggest that the Earth’s long-term sustainable human carrying capacity, at what might be defined as an “adequate” to “moderately comfortable” developed-world standard of living, may not be much greater than 2 to 3 billion. It may be considerably less, particularly if the normative lifestyle (level of consumption) aspired to is anywhere close to that of the United States....

Originally posted by Jerry West:[b]at what might be defined as an “adequate” to “moderately comfortable” developed-world standard of living,[/b]

There's your key right there.

I really don't think population is the problem until we've dealt with consumption. I find it unlikely that we can really gauge the issue from over here on this giant pile of crap we've built. Too hard to see past the ends of our noses.

Once there's a good amount of stability and equity available to everyone, along with infrastructiure and sound government, you can try to build a social framework that favours fewer rather than more children. I have no doubt that it is possible to acheive this.

"Possible" though maybe not "probable" - trying to blame the world problems on the great unwashed masses in Other (poor, brown, foreign) countries is really counter-productive. Detracts attention from the real issues.

our default position for the next two or three centuries ought to seek a very significant reduction in global human numbers.

Like we have that long.

I am sympathetic to the population argument. But I think by and of itself it misses the mark. Let's say we find a way to reduce the earth's population to 2-3 billion. If that 2-3 billion continues to consume and waste as the 2-3 billion that comprise the western world currently do, then a reduced population would not have the desired effect of achieving any sort of equilibrium between earth's resources and consumption nevermind sustainability.

Part of the issue, in my mind, is that scientists and others tend to look at global issues through the prism of their own speciality or focus of interest rather than holistically as an interconnected and interdependent system.

And the same is true for human behaviour and how it relates to these global issues. For example, the way we produce food is not to feed people but is to maximize profits for the corporations and people that control food supply for the people who can afford it.

So rather than Nigeria growing grains and produce for Nigerians and exporting the surplus, Nigeria grows grains and produce for export and dumps the surplus. And the same is true elsewhere.

The same is true for fish. Catch quotas are not a product of fish populations alone, but a product of negotiation between those assigned to measure fish populations, mandarins in Ottawa, and corporate interests looking to maximize profit through economies of scale via massive catches. And that is where there are quotas.

Other fishing practises intended to maximize catch are leaving the oceans stripped of life.

In fact, the cod story in eastern Canada is an excellent case in point of not understanding the systemic nature of the natural world (of which we divorce ourselves). Fished to near depletion and with a near moratorium on cod fishing, cod populations have not recovered. The reason being, according to one scientist, is because cod, once the predator, is now the prey. Cod stocks are so small fish cod once preyed on now eat the cod before the fish has a chance to mature into adulthood.

But, cod would never have reached such low levels if fishing had not been industrialized. And it was industrialized not for the purpose of feeding people but for the purpose of maximizing profits.

With any discussion on sustainability, the discussion often drifts to such topics as population, consumption, and waste but rarely ever addresses human behaviour at a systemic level. We often address human behaviour at an individual level (conservation, mostly), but rarely as a whole because to do so would call into question everything we take for granted in terms of living arrangements, economies, and wealth. And for the most part we are unprepared to do that because it would mean dramatic changes to the way we live our lives individually and collectively.

The author of the article thinks we have two or three centuries to reduce population. I think he is resoundingly optimistic. But that is because, I think, he is viewing the question from the perspective of all other things remaining equal. But that is a false presumption. Not all other things are remaining equal. In fact, we know, all other things are in motion from water depletion, fish stock depletion, energy depletion, the shift to fuel crops from food crops and the accompanying loss of forests and wilderness, and, of course, climate change.

But again, reducing population, however that is accomplished, is an exercise in futility unless it is matched with radical changes in human behaviour on a global scale.

Yeah, 2-3 centuries of doing the same thing we're doing and we're not going to have to worry about actively working to reduce the population, Gaia is going to take care of herself.

We're already seeing the first stages of wars for survival resources (instead of wars for money), and it's only going to get worse as the world heats up and water goes scarce, then arable soils, etc.

Not to mention the more densely populated we are the more likely we areto have quick spreading virulent diseases, high violent crime rates and natural disasters that kill far higher numbers than before.

Charlotte....:I really don't think population is the problem until we've dealt with consumption.

Both are a problem and it is a mistake to separate them. Current world resources can support a living standard about 75% lower than the current average Canadian standard, somewhat like Paraguay's. Are you arguing that the goal should be to reduce everyone to that standard of living?

Population is a part of the consumption problem.

quote:Once there's a good amount of stability and equity available to everyone, along with infrastructiure and sound government, you can try to build a social framework that favours fewer rather than more children. I have no doubt that it is possible to acheive this.

I believe that too, but logic also tells me that putting off the population issue will lengthen the time required to reach that state, if not put it off altogether.

quote: ....trying to blame the world problems on the great unwashed masses in Other (poor, brown, foreign) countries is really counter-productive.

Everyone is to blame, and playing the guilt card like this is a rhetorical ploy to evade the issue. It has no real bearing on the fact that we have an over population problem if we want a better average global standard of living for all.

quote:FM:Let's say we find a way to reduce the earth's population to 2-3 billion. If that 2-3 billion continues to consume and waste as the 2-3 billion that comprise the western world currently do, then a reduced population would not have the desired effect of achieving any sort of equilibrium between earth's resources and consumption nevermind sustainability.

True, but the goal is sustainability which requires reducing demand to what the system can replace. That reduction comes from either reducing individual demand to the appropriate level (currently to about on quarter of what Canadians are now making) or reducing the number of those making demands, or a combination of both.

The fewer people the more each can sustainably take from the system. It is possible to have a small population that even given the average lifestyle in the US the system could absorb it and then some.

What we are really debating here is what kind of a life we want our grandchildren's grandchildren to have. A concept that may be difficult in western thinking that struggle to go beyond the next quarter. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:For example, the way we produce food is not to feed people but is to maximize profits for the corporations and people that control food supply for the people who can afford it.

You make many good points on things that should be changed.

quote:But again, reducing population, however that is accomplished, is an exercise in futility unless it is matched with radical changes in human behaviour on a global scale.

That really depends on how much you reduce the population by.

quote:quelar:We're already seeing the first stages of wars for survival resources (instead of wars for money), and it's only going to get worse as the world heats up and water goes scarce, then arable soils, etc.

Not to mention the more densely populated we are the more likely we areto have quick spreading virulent diseases, high violent crime rates and natural disasters that kill far higher numbers than before.

And the more dispossed and frustrated people there are the more people they are going to kill, and reducing people with high living standards to those of Paraguay will garner a lot of sympathy among people with wealth and political clout to just kill off the disaffected rather than give up anything.

What we need is a global agreement on how much bio-mass each individual is entitled to, seen as a human right, then set about gradually to reduce populations until that ratio is achieved.

Such an agreement could include maximum allowable densities in any given area, and minimum required open spaces between populations.

There's a reason why every developed country in the world has a stable or declining population.

The best way to stabilize global population is for less developed countries to raise the living standards and increase the economic and social security of their citizens.

Nor does raising living standards mean those countries need to engage in the kind of waste and excess that many North Americans do. Many European countries consume way less of the world's finite resources than Canada or the U.S., but have higher living standards.

The problem is, let's say we have a bushel of apples and we are on an island with no vegetation and we are hoping to be rescued. The bushel contains 126 apples.

Now, I am eating six apples a day to your two. At that rate the apples will only last 16 days. Now, if I get rid of you, I get myself 5 more days. But if I reduce myself to two apples to match you we both get 32 days.

My position would be, before we even begin to look at population (and let's be honest, when we speak about population we are speaking about people who are mostly brown and live in so-called developing countries) we need to first attack our own, that is western, consumption. Otherwise the project is nothing more than ridding ourselves of the minor competition before we start seriously eyeing each other.

quote:For example, the way we produce food is not to feed people but is to maximize profits for the corporations and people that control food supply for the people who can afford it.

quote:Originally posted by Jerry West:[b]You make many good points on things that should be changed.[/b]

This and the outrageous profit margins of corporations and the extreme wealthy who are actually parasites on the working person are the first things that should be changed, long before telling average people they can't have children and must adhere to their personal bio-mass needsand live where you are told.

John K:The best way to stabilize global population is for less developed countries to raise the living standards and increase the economic and social security of their citizens.

It is one way and not to be discounted. Of course the fewer people that there are in a country the easier it is to raise living standards since there is more to go around.

However, this is not about less developed countries, it is a global issue. Many developed countries, including the US, are overpopulated to the point that their available bio-mass can not support their living standard. In the US case living standards are about 50% more than the bio-mass will support.

However, North America has 17% of the world's bio-capacity and only uses 22% of it, more than its share but not as much as Asia/Pacific which has 24% of the bio-capacity yet uses 34%. Europe (EU countries) has only 9% of the bio-capacity but uses 16%. Adding the non EU countries brings it down to almost even at 20% and 23%.

The only regions in the world not using more than their share are Latin America which has 26% of the world's bio-capacity but only uses 8% of it, Africa which has 10% and uses 7%, and non EU Europe which has 11% and uses 7%.

Latin America could triple its use of bio-capacity and still have surplus with the current population. This would come at the expense of everyone else.

Non EU Europe could continue on as is with a modest improvement in living standards.

Africa, which has very low standards to start with is still looking at population reduction to raise them more than a pittance.

North America could easily reach a comfortable sustainability with consumption cuts, but Asia with its lower standards would need population reductions to raise levels.

quote:FM:The problem is, let's say we have a bushel of apples and we are on an island with no vegetation and we are hoping to be rescued.

Except that our island is perpetually renewable if we don't over exploit it. Once we determine the replenishment rate for apples we can allocate how many can be eaten in a day without killing the supply and then limit the number of eaters to match the share per eater that we wish to have.

quote:(and let's be honest, when we speak about population we are speaking about people who are mostly brown and live in so-called developing countries)

My preference would be to start in California which has three times as many people as it should have. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:remind:This and the outrageous profit margins of corporations and the extreme wealthy who are actually parasites on the working person are the first things that should be changed,...

Large populations hurt the working persons by driving down the value of labour.

Those things need to be tackled, even if there were not a population problem, but fixing them alone will not solve our problems.

To add perspective the table below list countries and the maximum sustainable world population in billions if the average living standard was the same as currently in the country listed:

Except that our island is perpetually renewable if we don't over exploit it.

That would be the key, wouldn't it? And my argument would be that we do over exploit it and that, as demonstrated by your list, a minority of humans in the west over exploit it to the detriment of all. Which is why I maintain we must first deal with the consumption issue before dealing with the population issue.

quote:In the US case living standards are about 50% more than the bio-mass will support.

Say what? Standard of living has to do with the quantity and quality of goods and services in an economy and how those goods and services are distributed among the population. How a modern economy can be reduced to a simplistic bio-mass formula is beyond me.

Nor is poverty in the Third World a product of overpopulation. [b]If anything, rapid population growth is a consequence rather than a cause of poverty.[/b] In conditions in which poor sanitation and lack of medical care greatly reduce a child's chances of survival to maturity, and in which welfare provisions are non-existent, a high birth rate is often a family's only guarantee of a minimum standard of living and a moderate level of security in old age.

Experience in the industrialised countries in which population growth rates are less than 0.5 per cent (implying a doubling time of more than 150 years), shows that lower birth rates and a state of equilibrium between births and deaths are results of urbanisation, adequate nutrition, improved heath, education and social services, and higher social status for women, all of which accompany industrialisation. As the 1974 World Population Conference observed, [b]"development is the best contraceptive".[/b] ....

That overpopulation is not the fundamental cause of hunger and environmental degradation is also shown by the fact that both can occur in thinly populated lands such as the wide tropical forest-steppe belt of the African Sahel, to the south of the Sahara.....

Rapid population growth is, of course, a serious problem for poor countries, since it undermines their ability to maintain, let alone improve, living standards. In the context of an international economic system that consistently drains wealth from the Third World, deepening poverty and rapid population growth leads many Third World peoples to overexploit their natural resources, resulting in environmental degradation that imperils not only their own survival but that of humanity as a whole. ....

The economic exploitation of Third World countries by transnational capital, and the accompanying military-political intervention by Western governments to maintain this exploitation, is the fundamental obstacle to the social and economic changes required to eliminate poverty in those countries, bring about a decline in their population growth and take pressure off their environment.

[b]The populationist argument, which takes food distribution among and within nations as given, directs attention away from the responsibility of the international capitalist system as the root cause of rapid population growth, poverty and environmental degradation in the Third World. This is why populationism is so popular with the representatives of transnational capital and their apologists.[/b] It also infects mainstream environmentalism nationally and internationally: biologic pseudoexplanations enjoy strong support in such organisations as the Sierra Club and the Australian Conservation Foundation; the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo, while noting the obvious fact that men and women will, under certain conditions, voluntarily limit their own fertility, still regarded "population" as the core environmental problem. The proposed solution - birth control - merely treats a symptom and leaves the fundamental problem untouched. [b]As Barry Commoner has commented, this is "equivalent to attempting to save a leaking ship by lightening the load and forcing passengers overboard. One is constrained to ask if there is not something radically wrong with the ship."[/b]

This truth is dramatised by the environmental situation of such developing countries, like China and Thailand, which have practiced successful birth control policies: [b]the achieved decline in population growth rates has had little impact on the burgeoning environmental crisis.[/b]

While it is true that the Earth's human population cannot be allowed to continue growing indefinitely at its present rate, and measures must be taken to achieve a stable or even declining population, the populationists skate over the main means of accomplishing this: an environmentally benign economic system that can underpin secure living standards for all.

FM: And my argument would be that we do over exploit it and that, as demonstrated by your list, a minority of humans in the west over exploit it to the detriment of all.

So does everyone living in areas that have a standard of living higher than the bio-capacity of the area will support.

What is a detriment depends on what one considers a fair average standard of living. If the living standard of Uzebekistan is consider the ideal one, then yes, we could have that for all by cutting down in all of the countries in the world that have a foot print of greater than 1.8gha. Note from the list above, the foot print of Canada is 7.6ha, the US 9.6ha, Austria is 4.9gha.

If we think that Austria's standard of living is desirable for the world then a global population of 2.3 billion is the max. That means about a 64% reduction from the present population. North America and the two Europes have 16% of the world's population, after you wipe them both out you still have 48% to go or accept an average global standard of living comparable to Malaysia or Turkey.

Whether we cut population or not, or how much depends on what we think the average world living standard should be. Reaching the desirable average standard won't guarantee everyone will be the same, but until the population level reaches the point where that standard is the average we certainly can not possibly attain it for everyone.

China, incidentally, has a foot print of 1.6gha which is below the maximum available globally but only has a bio-capacity of .8gha so there are twice as many Chinese as its bio-capacity can sustainably support at its current consumption level.

quote:JK:How a modern economy can be reduced to a simplistic bio-mass formula is beyond me.

And a lot of other people which is why achieving meaningful environmental action is going to be very difficult.

Human life depends on the ability of the planet's bio-capacity to support it. Resources are limited which places a limit on growth, beyond which growth becomes a killer.

quote:M. Spector:Nor is poverty in the Third World a product of overpopulation.

That would depend upon one's definition of poverty. What individual foot print would be considered the poverty line? Uzebekistan's is 1.8gha which is the maximum the world could sustainably support with the present population. For one higher than that the population has to come down. The current actual average is about 2.2gha so the world is overdrawing on its resources.

If we equalized consumption based on the current population places like Malaysia and Turkey and everywhere with better standards than theirs would have to reduce their living standards.

quote:If anything, rapid population growth is a consequence rather than a cause of poverty.

It is both. You can not reasonably argue that more people with the same amount of resources does lessen the average share.

quote:As the 1974 World Population Conference observed, "development is the best contraceptive".

But, it may not be enough given the difference in population now and in 1974.

quote:That overpopulation is not the fundamental cause of hunger and environmental degradation

Denying that it is part of the cause would be like denying that the Earth is a globe.

quote:Rapid population growth is, of course, a serious problem for poor countries, since it undermines their ability to maintain, let alone improve, living standards. In the context of an international economic system that consistently drains wealth from the Third World, deepening poverty and rapid population growth leads many Third World peoples to overexploit their natural resources, resulting in environmental degradation that imperils not only their own survival but that of humanity as a whole.

Yes, population is part of the problem.

quote:As Barry Commoner has commented, this is "equivalent to attempting to save a leaking ship by lightening the load and forcing passengers overboard. One is constrained to ask if there is not something radically wrong with the ship."

In the case at hand it is more like a ship that is not leaking but is overloaded and sinking under its own weight. Lessening weight is necessary for it to continue floating.

quote:This truth is dramatised by the environmental situation of such developing countries, like China and Thailand, which have practiced successful birth control policies: the achieved decline in population growth rates has had little impact on the burgeoning environmental crisis.

China has a population double what it can sustainably support. Implying that China's population does not contribute to its environmental problems is ignorant at best.

quote:While it is true that the Earth's human population cannot be allowed to continue growing indefinitely at its present rate, and measures must be taken to achieve a stable or even declining population, the populationists skate over the main means of accomplishing this: an environmentally benign economic system that can underpin secure living standards for all.

But at what level do we wish to define a secure living standard? An environmentally benign economic system that would do that with the present population reduces everyone to the level of Uzebekistan or Paraguay or there abouts.

There are good arguments to be made against the economic system, but playing them off against the environmental problem and the role of population in it is misguided at best. Both problems need to be fixed.

The problem is Jerry, we can't "fix" others population problems, so this is really a waste of time unless the left wants top transmute itself into another Reform party. That would be totally unacceptable to me and most other progressives I know. To tie this back into the previous thread on this, third world poverty, not wealth, is actually more of motivater for small things like the destruction of rain forest and unsupportable families. If the root causes are addressed, rather than the feedback, then we just might might make our way out our present bottleneck. Maybe.

Quelar, I appreciate you seeing this, but I'm now convinced it's even worse than that. We could very easily kill Gaia and send the whole evolutionary expereiment back to the pre-Cambrian tomorrow if there was a major nuclear war, possibility that grows as resourcew become moere scarce. We would go with it OC, but not much of a solution even from a macro-biological perspective. More likely we'll be facing massivie offs within two to three Generations, meaning what our generation does in the next ten years or so is crucial. Once the effects become universally severe it'll probably be too late for most of us.

It looks pretty bleak for the future. It looks to me like the people who've preached against the road to serfdom are the very architects of a superhighway to scarcity and widespread starvation of millions already happening for several decades. I think there will have to be a period of lowered expectations for standards of living around the world if we are to avoid the first civilization-wide crisis with global warming and the negative side effects. Nothing short of a miracle will be needed in near future to avoid disaster.

There are people on the left, right and no particular political affiliation who place much hope in near-future scientific and technological progress to get us out of this mess. It would require a significant paradigm shift in both expectations and demands of the environment as well as human resourcefulness. There are people who expect the paradigm shift toward [url=http://sss.stanford.edu/overview/whatisthesingularity/]technological singularity[/url] to happen sometime between 2030 and 2040. It's said that the rate of change of human progress has been more or less linear up to now. Past the point of singularity, however, the rate of scientific and technological change will be unpredictable. Will singularity solve scarcity and pollution ?. Some have already predicted that the secrets of longevity itself will be understood by the next generation.

I love James Howard Kunstler's bluntness, Fidel, and he answers the question of a technological fix:

quote: The confusion about this, induced by strenuous wishing, is such that most people expect the next energy resource to consist of technology itself.

This has been the heart of my beef with the rosy future crowd. Energy and technology are not the same thing, not interchangeable or substitutable. If you run out of one (energy), you can't just plug in the other (technology).

quote: What is a detriment depends on what one considers a fair average standard of living.

Well that's what it all comes down to, isn't it? So what is a fair average standard of living? Once we have determined that, we go a long way to determining consumption needs and thus the carrying capacity of the planet.

I don't think we can focus on overpopulation on a global scale so much at the moment. We're going to have to focus on consumption. In general, a sustainable level of consumption is about 75% below what nations such as Canada and the US consume now. We have to reach this point in... 50 years? Its a tough sell, but probably a better one than whatever method we would use to reduce the global population by the same amount over the same amount of time.

How do we get there? That is going be a longer post than I'm willing to make before lunch.

Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:[b]I love James Howard Kunstler's bluntness, Fidel, and he answers the question of a technological fix:[/b]

What does Kunstler say about the future of nuclear power and scientific efforts to complete the nuclear fuel cycle?. How about nanotechnology that could make it possible to synthesize a cleaner fuel to replace oil and its derivatives ?. Science and tech may be able to fully harness solar energy at some point in future. People like Kunstler will likely be dead a long time before it happens, but I think technology offers some hope for future generations. So far, technological progress is the domain of public spending on R&D for military purposes. This generation has to continue pushing for democratization so that technological change is owned by the people and not used for very undemocratic purposes ie. "private enterprise" for warfiteering agendas. Our economy is basically driven by second-hand military technology paid for once already with taxpayer's money.

They could decide to circumvent democracy altogether, and this is already a concern with accusations of covert public spending in the U.S. on what are colossal wastes of time and money on star wars missile defence and secrecy surrounding biological weapons research making use of publicly-funded research and universities. And it provides justification for developing countries with military capabilities to focus away from the tasks at hand. The job for this generation is to avoid ecological crash and burn and to continue the struggle for democracy. If we don't do that, then I think we're looking at more wars of conquest, chaos and tyranny in general. Capitalists have doffed their masks as predicted already with fangs now exposed to the world. I'm just saying the future is not written in stone yet, but it does look bleak unless a significant paradigm shift happens at some point.

ETHR:The problem is Jerry, we can't "fix" others population problems, so this is really a waste of time....

The problems certainly won't get fixed by anyone but nature if we do not keep them in the forefront, and if we don't fix them the alternative is worse. Defeatism is not a wise choice.

quote:To tie this back into the previous thread on this, third world poverty, not wealth, is actually more of motivater for small things like the destruction of rain forest and unsupportable families.

Motivators of course are not set in stone, they change and can be changed. Also, when contemplating much of the destruction in the third world, rather than looking to the impoverished one might more profitably look at the customers if one wants to make changes.

quote:If the root causes are addressed, rather than the feedback, then we just might might make our way out our present bottleneck

The root physical cause is demand. Population and demand go hand in hand. If one wishes to argue that more people mean less demand, go ahead.

quote:More likely we'll be facing massive (die) offs within two to three Generations, meaning what our generation does in the next ten years or so is crucial.

What we are facing if the population continues to rise is more than ugly. Playing around with the economic structure and shell games like carbon credits and the like is akin to fighting a forest fire by pissing on it. It might make one feel good, but the long term effects will be negligible.

quote:I don't think we can focus on overpopulation on a global scale so much at the moment. We're going to have to focus on consumption. In general, a sustainable level of consumption is about 75% below what nations such as Canada and the US consume now.

Without a parallel focus on reducing population level sustainable consumption will continue to drop as the population increases. Everyone against dealing with the population issue and willing to accept a living standard such as the one in Haiti, raise their hand.

The fact of the matter is that we have to address all aspects of the consumption issue, including lifestyles, economic patterns, and population size.

Jerry? A diversion? Really. You raised two questions. One is population which it is obvious, to me at least, you think is a problem and the other one is standard of living.

So the questions that must logically flow from that is what standard of living are we aiming for? What is the carrying capacity of the planet at that standard of living? And how many of the current population becomes too many?

quote: Several of Kunstler's predictions about near future events have been flat out wrong.

Like which ones?

quote: I'd prefer to hope doom and gloomers like him are wrong about the coming singularity.

That's sounds almost religious. Are you sure it is not the second coming of the singularity?

Like his predictions of a DOW crash for the last several years running. Not only is Kunstler not an expert on the stock market, he's also not a scientist. If you want to know where leading edge science is headed, don't read Kuntsler.

So the questions that must logically flow from that is what standard of living are we aiming for? What is the carrying capacity of the planet at that standard of living? And how many of the current population becomes too many?

The standard of living that we are aiming for must be one that most of us agree on.

As for the rest of the question, refer to an earlier post in this thread where I listed exactly that by giving a range of current living standards and the population level that would be the maximum allowed to sustain them.

If you want to make your own calculations the planet has a current (2003) bio-capacity of about 11.2 billion global hectares (gha). Divide that by population and you get the individual maximum average foot print which indicates maximum average standard of living.

Canadian average foot print in 2003 was 7.6gha, European Union average was 4.8gha, Uzbekistan was 1.8gha which was also the global maximum average for sustainability. Unfortunately the actual global average was closer to 2.2gha, an overdraft of the ecological account.

We have four choices, three of them address the problem:

1. Forget population and reduce living standards to one fifth of what the Americans currently enjoy;

2. Reduce population to allow for present living standards;

3. Reduce both population and living standards to some point which means neither gets reduced as much as 1 or 2; or

4. Don't address the population and consumption problem at all and get overwhelmed by it.

People who think that we can address the consumption problem alone, or find salvation in technological tinkering don't understand the problem or are naive enough to think that people in the developed world are going to willingly reduce their standards to those of Uzebekistan or less.

I wonder what they propose for the masses of people who will not give up half to three quarters of what they have?

I don't think the Asia Pacific nations, the world's biggest polluters and most consumptive economies, are at all interested in curbing GHG emissions or in sharing resources with poorer nations. And I don't believe population reduction that would lead to a significantly slower economic expansion is even in the skunkworks for those countries. It looks like capitalists will, no doubt, lead us all down that road to guaranteed serfdom, Jerry. I can't see our colonial administrators turning energy spigots even partially closed, or of them saying "no" to immigration for the purposes of cheap labour in applying downward pressure on unions and living wages in general. Even the global monetary system is premised on the theory of unbridled expansion. It seems we're doomed to choke on either the resultant pollution, more frequent famines and-or strangulation by interest-owing debts owed to superrich bond holders and the international banking cabal as punishment for not pursuing growth.

You may be right, Fidel, but whether people are willing to take meaningful steps to solve the problem or not does not make the problem go away, or indicate that we should stick our head in the sand and avoid the reality of it when addressing it.

The facts are there, the solution (reducing consumption) is obvious. Only how to achieve it is debatable.

Originally posted by Jerry West:[b]The facts are there, the solution (reducing consumption) is obvious. Only how to achieve it is debatable.[/b]

I have no problem envisioning ordinary people doing their part to conserve energy in their homes(so more power will be pushed south for consumption in the U.S.). Canadians will follow any rule of thumb for greening the planet, whether they glean it from a Reader's Digest article or if the feds draft national rules and micro-manage family level consumption for us.

What I do have a difficult time envisioning are federal regulations for curbing transnational's right to own and extract our fossil fuels and raw materials for export. Paul Martin said just before exiting that Canada's is still a hewer and drawer economy based on export of energy and raw materials. That giant terrawatt lightbulb to the south of us has "interests" in our energy and natural resource exports, especially since FTA-NAFTA. And I'm not sure what's happening with deep integration and SPP, but it's not evident to me that the feds are interested in strong central government or in anything other than liberalizing trade, capital and foreign ownership rules for our stuff. To me, globalization is counter-productive to the tasks at hand.

Like his predictions of a DOW crash for the last several years running. Not only is Kunstler not an expert on the stock market, he's also not a scientist. If you want to know where leading edge science is headed, don't read Kuntsler.

He is not alone. Many people are predicting a stock market crash due to the subprime mortgage fiasco. And they will probably be getting it.

Who is an expert on the stock market?

The leading edge of science, you may be aware, is feuled by energy. Now, one more time ... technology is not energy ...

Anyway, Jerry, I won't deal with the rest of your comments, just this one:

quote: The facts are there, the solution (reducing consumption) is obvious. Only how to achieve it is debatable.

Not scientific, I agree, but I also think it fairly represents the general attitude. People don't give a shit for the planet or the future beyond their own comfort. People will only make changes when there remains no other choice. But by that time, it will be too late.

Fidel's right, Free trade and globalization take away our power to make any grand changes. Even if we reduce our population or usage, with those agreements in place we legally CAN NOT turn off the energy, resource, and water taps.

As for how to deal with the 'extra' population. It doesn't have to happen overnight, no one is recommending a genocide of some kind. This can happen over a few generations, or in fact one. If everyone only has one child, then we halve the population in 50 years time. And fewer people means more jobs, because we sitll need people working.

It would, in fact, enrich the poorest people, unfortuantely due to a lack of education, good jobs, and the presence of idiots like the catholic church, or bush's faith based funding, people in poorer area's have more children than they can afford.

So you're saying Kunstler is not an authority on any particular subject ?.

Oh, no, not yet another person whose best debating technique is to insert words into another's mouth. Fidel, I expect better.

He is in fact a well respected author and critic on urban design and architecture. It is from there he developed his peak oil awareness and concerns.

Thanks for jumping in there WCG one more time where you have not a clue.

quote: Fidel's right, Free trade and globalization take away our power to make any grand changes. Even if we reduce our population or usage, with those agreements in place we legally CAN NOT turn off the energy, resource, and water taps.

Only if you assume we would otherwise make those changes. There is no evidence that we would.

quote: If everyone only has one child, then we halve the population in 50 years time. And fewer people means more jobs, because we sitll need people working.

We would only halve the population if everyone else was dead in fifty years. But how would you go about enforcing a "one child" rule?

quote: It would, in fact, enrich the poorest people, unfortuantely due to a lack of education, good jobs, and the presence of idiots like the catholic church, or bush's faith based funding, people in poorer area's have more children than they can afford.

That's quite a leap. What if we agree humans are animals and creatures of their biology? Would you then agree that the very poor have more children because there is a better chance their DNA will survive if they have more than one child? Whereas in our society with just one child we can be reasonably self-assured it will survive to carry on our genetic material.

Only if you assume we would otherwise make those changes. There is no evidence that we would.

True, it's a big 'if'.

quote:We would only halve the population if everyone else was dead in fifty years. But how would you go about enforcing a "one child" rule?

Again true, but once that older gen drops off (75 years or so) we'd see a large population decline.

As for enforcing.. Not f'ing idea.

quote:That's quite a leap. What if we agree humans are animals and creatures of their biology? Would you then agree that the very poor have more children because there is a better chance their DNA will survive if they have more than one child? Whereas in our society with just one child we can be reasonably self-assured it will survive to carry on our genetic material.

Again true (on quite a roll there, keep it up!) but if the proper conditions are created that they wouldn't have to be as concerned, I think we'd see a fairly large drop in birth rates. But again, how to accomplish all of this is a big unknown, I'm just saying it's a good idea if we could pull it off.

1. Forget population and reduce living standards to one fifth of what the Americans currently enjoy;

2. Reduce population to allow for present living standards;

3. Reduce both population and living standards to some point which means neither gets reduced as much as 1 or 2; or

4. Don't address the population and consumption problem at all and get overwhelmed by it.

I don't agree these are the only choices.

The relationship between population and consumption is not a zero sum game. It is possible to reduce consumption while raising living standards. An example is retro-fitting my house which conserves energy thereby saving me money and raising my standard of living. There are thousands of such examples.

Nor should consumption be equated with living standards. Living standards include quality health care, quality education, clean water and sanitation, and a strong social safety net. These things have little to do with consuming resources but are integral to living standards.

This is not to downplay the serious sustainability challenges facing our world. I agree that if everyone in the world adopted American or Canadian consumption patterns we'd be in deep trouble. But those are not the only choices, not by a long shot.

Comparing having more than one child with murder and other felonies now are we? I'm beginning to think that youre the one in denial Jerry West, as I note for the benefit of others here that you have YET to EXPLAIN why poor people should or WOULD accept draconian and ultimtately unworkable "solutions" than we wastrels would. Like you said, just won't happen. So lets focus on what could. I'll try onemore time to explain where youre wrong, wrong wrong, but right now I'm too frikkin angry at what I keep seeing here to give a properly thought out response. I got a deck to repair this weekend, maybe that'll help.

You are denying that population is linked to consumption, or that we are over populated in relation to the resource base for an average living standard anywhere above that of Uzebekistan?

quote:I note for the benefit of others here that you have YET to EXPLAIN why poor people should or WOULD accept draconian and ultimately unworkable "solutions" than we wastrels would.

Because it is irrelevant to the basic point that population is a part of the problem.

Are you conceding that population is part of the problem and now we should move on to a discussion on the best ways to reduce it?

Let us start with a basic principle:

The right to reproduce is limited by society's superior right to protect itself.

Personally I would prefer any number of legal restrictions, penalties and enforcement methods to the natural solution to this problem: mass die off. Perhaps others do not.

quote:JK:The relationship between population and consumption is not a zero sum game.

Resources are fixed, population is variable. The more population the fewer resources per capita. How efficiently we can utilize those resources has an effect on the what size of population we can support at a certain level, but as population increases the level of support decreases.

quote:It is possible to reduce consumption while raising living standards.

Retrofitting your house would be increased consumption. Less energy use in the long run would be decreased consumption. Spending the money you saved for further consumption to raise your living standard would defeat the purpose.

quote:Nor should consumption be equated with living standards. Living standards include quality health care, quality education, clean water and sanitation, and a strong social safety net. These things have little to do with consuming resources but are integral to living standards.

They have everything to do with consuming resources as they all require inputs of material and energy.

quote:This is not to downplay the serious sustainability challenges facing our world. I agree that if everyone in the world adopted American or Canadian consumption patterns we'd be in deep trouble. But those are not the only choices, not by a long shot.

No, an immediate choice would be to reduce everyone in the world to the same standard as Uzbekistan. We have the resources to support that and doing so would improve the lot of many people.

If we choose not to do that, and choose not to reduce the population, then we get a system where some consume much more than others, and at the present rate in aggregate we are consuming more than can be replenished so we are headed for a crash.

As for the wasteful societies, which are wasteful, even if we vaporized all of the people in Europe and North America tomorrow the best the rest of the world could hope for would be an average standard like that in Turkey and Malaysia.

Some people seem to be under the delusion that just cleaning up the greedy developed countries will fix the problem. The fact is that population of really needy countries and not quite so needy is way greater than the greedy so the division of spoils will not go all that far, particularly if one thinks a living standard about half that of the US is sufficient.

Solving our environmental problem and ending up with a relatively comfortable and modern standard of living is going to require a change in both consumption patterns in some places, and overall global population reduction. Where, who and how is debatable.

Solving our environmental problem and ending up with a relatively comfortable and modern standard of living is going to require a change in both consumption patterns in some places, and overall global population reduction.

Whatever standard is set at will determine the maximum population load to keep it within the limits of being sustainable.

One can not logically divorce the maximum average sustainable standard of living from the size of the population that it will support. As one goes up the other goes down, give or take a few techno fixes.

quote:No, an immediate choice would be to reduce everyone in the world to the same standard as Uzbekistan. We have the resources to support that and doing so would improve the lot of many people.

If we choose not to do that, and choose not to reduce the population, then we get a system where some consume much more than others, and at the present rate in aggregate we are consuming more than can be replenished so we are headed for a crash.

There is a profound pessimism underlying the above post and similar ones throughout this thread. In my view, such pessimism is unwarranted.

My outlook is decidely more optimistic. Look at a country like India. Forty years ago - with a population less than one-third what it is today- India was unable to meet any of the basic needs of its citizenry. Widespread famines were common occurrences. Today, India not only feeds itself it is a net food exporter. India is also becoming a world leader in many other fields including manufacturing and knowledge-based industries.

Parts of India like the Ganges River watershed are heavily populated to be sure, but not moreso than other densely populated regions like the Netherlands and the Ruhr region of Germany. As living standards rise, India's population growth (which is already slowing) will stabilize just as it has in densely populated parts of the developed world.

Originally posted by John K:[b] Forty years ago - with a population less than one-third what it is today- India was unable to meet any of the basic needs of its citizenry. Widespread famines were common occurrences. Today, India not only feeds itself it is a net food exporter.[/b]

According to Nobel economist Amartya Sen's figures, democratic capitalism has been the kiss of death for over a hundred million Indians between the years 1947 and 1979. 350 million Indians are malnourished and go to bed hungry every night. A more remarkable achievement wrt improving mortality should be identified with China under Mao. China's infant mortality was worse than India's at one time. By 1976, China's infant mortality rates were better than democratic capitalist India's rate [i]today.[/i]

quote:[url=http://www.spectrezine.org/global/chomsky.htm]He estimates[/url]the excess of mortality in India over China to be close to 4 million a year: "India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame," 1958-1961 (Dreze and Sen).

quote:[b]India is also becoming a world leader in many other fields including manufacturing and knowledge-based industries.[/b]

JK:My outlook is decidely more optimistic. Look at a country like India.

Consider that India has an average standard of living requiring .8gha to support it and only .4gha available tells us that India is either dependent on outside sources for survival, or that it is eating up its environmental capital, or both. Whatever, it is not a sustainable society, even though its per capita consumption is less than half of its share of the total world resources and almost ten times less than Canada.

Are you seriously advocating that the goal for the planet should be for every society to live like India?

quote:Forty years ago - with a population less than one-third what it is today- India was unable to meet any of the basic needs of its citizenry.

I doubt that that is true. It undoubtedly was meeting the basic needs of some of its citizenry, and I bet that it still isn't meeting the needs of some of them. My experience in India revealed a lot of very poor people.

The FAO says that about 20% of Indians are under nourished as of 2004, about the same number as 1995 despite a slight increase in food production.

And this is after the green revolution which saw food production in India multiply by a factor of 6. Unfortunately the green revolution is a petro-chemical dependent model which has many problems with sustainability, not to mention the dwindling petroleum supply. What happens when food production returns to a more normal state?

Being a net exporter of food does not mean that a country is not starving its people. In fact it could be a sign that a country is purposefully starving its people.

It is also possible that some of the starvation historically in India may have been the result of poor transportation and allocation of resources and not lack of food production.

quote:Parts of India like the Ganges River watershed are heavily populated to be sure, but not moreso than other densely populated regions like the Netherlands and the Ruhr region of Germany.

Germany is consuming about 4 times its bio-capacity and the Netherlands over 5 times. Neither is sustainable.

quote:As living standards rise, India's population growth (which is already slowing) will stabilize just as it has in densely populated parts of the developed world.

In a country where the bio-capacity is less than the per capita consumption, mere stabilization is not enough, population levels should match the ability of the bio-capacity of a region to support the level of consumption that takes place there.

quote:10 October 2006

How Long Can the World Feed Itself?

By Gwynne Dyer

We are still living off the proceeds of the Green Revolution, but that hit di-minishing returns twenty years ago. Now we live in a finely balanced situa-tion where world food supply just about meets demand, with no reserve to cover further population growth. But the population will grow anyway, and the world's existing grain supply for human consumption is being eroded by three different factors: meat, heat and biofuels.

For the sixth time in the past seven years, the human race will grow less food than it eats this year. We closed the gap by eating into food stocks ac-cumulated in better times, but there is no doubt that the situation is getting serious. The world's food stocks have shrunk by half since 1999, from a re-serve big enough to feed the entire world for 116 days then to a predicted low of only 57 days by the end of this year.

That is well below the official safety level, and there is no sign that the downward trend is going to reverse. If it doesn't, then at some point not too far down the road we reach the point of absolute food shortages, and ration-ing by price kicks in. In other words, grain prices soar, and the poorest start to starve.

The miracle that has fed us for a whole generation now was the Green Revolution: higher-yielding crops that enabled us to almost triple world food production between 1950 and 1990 while increasing the area of farmland by no more than ten percent. The global population more than doubled in that time, so we are now living on less than half the land per person than our grandparents needed. But that was a one-time miracle, and it's over. Since the beginning of the 1990s, crop yields have essentially stopped rising.

The world's population continues to grow, of course, though more slowly than in the previous generation. We will have to find food for the equiva-lent of another India and another China in the next fifty years, and no-body has a clue how we are going to do that. But the more immediate prob-lem is that the world's existing grain supply is under threat.

Farmpunk:I still think there are sustainable biological ways to grow enough food to feed everyone right now.

Maybe, or maybe there is even enough food right now if it were better distributed. But food is only part of the picture. Just because we can feed X number of people is not a good reason to have that many. We have to consider the total impact of population on the ecosystem including what it is doing to other species that have been severely depleted.

Population equal carbon emissions, sewage, water consumption wildlife, both flora and fauna, depletion and so on. All of those things interact to create a world that has been hospitable for human habitation. As we change them radically the interaction change and we may find our species dealt out of the game.

Ideally we should have a population on the planet that no matter what we do, no matter what standard of living we choose, the system can absorb it and recoup without permanent damage.